Let's build houses for people, not cars

Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by briandear on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @01:04PM (#20811978)

Agree completely. Houston doesn’t have zoning. Houston also doesn’t have a housing affordability crisis. Houston also doesn’t have high developer fees or low income housing mandates. Houston also has a lot of parking. Weird. A city doing almost the exact opposite of what many “housing advocates” prescribe and they don’t have a housing problem.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by rtkwe on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @01:31PM (#20812314)

Houston is also not squeezed at all geographically except for to the south-east by the Gulf. San Francisco on the other hand is constrained on 3 sides by water. Expanding across the Bay is possible but expensive because you have to provide bridges for all the people to get back into jobs in the city otherwise it's not SF housing it's just Oakland housing.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by munk-a on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @02:21PM (#20812850)

Houston is squeezed in geographically by flood plains and marshes - which developers merrily ignored and developed on. When a hurricane hit, surprise of all surprises, a bunch of houses in these areas were flooded. Thankfully a lack of regulations managed to not solve any traffic or density issues while all also making the city more vulnerable to disasters.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by rtkwe on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @03:27PM (#20813532)

They /should/ have been squeezed, but flood plains and marshes aren't hard barriers to building like water (though you can do reclamation but that's also pretty expensive). They're places you shouldn't (or should be very careful about about) build in but they're not places you can't build in period.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by eesmith on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @09:38AM (#20819629)

Houston doesn't have official zoning. It does have land use regulations, including off-street parking mandates, which act like de facto zoning.

https://marketurbanism.com/2016/09/19/how-houston-regulates-...

> Here’s the doozy: Houston mandates off-street parking for just about every form of development. This is probably the number one regulation holding back the city’s rapid densification and a major reason that car-dependence remains the norm. By requiring developers to build either parking deserts and garages, this policy encourages developers to bypass exciting infill and downtown opportunities in favor of developing in the suburbs where land is cheap.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by cannonedhamster on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @04:27PM (#20814097)

You can't compare Texas with literally acres of open space surrounding their cities to real states with actual population densities. Texas literally brags about how big they are and how much land they have. Come talk to me when Texas has less than 20% of it's population as cows unlike the 40% it's at now.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by novok on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @02:01PM (#20812624)

Houston has parking minimums and other car-favored building regulations.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by Dirlewanger on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @03:48PM (#20813747)

Houston is also the most egregious case of rampant urban sprawl on the planet.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by jayd16 on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @12:04PM (#20811135)

Market forces build things like Uber. Are we actually going to get public transit this way? I really doubt it.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by thorwasdfasdf on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @12:15PM (#20811281)

No. Regulations have completely prevented anyone from ever building more public transit. One company, all they did was try to get a few more buses on the road, and they were shut down very swiftly.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by jayd16 on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @01:11PM (#20812066)

Almost certainly that's completely unrelated to zoning and prop 13. I'm not saying all regulation is good but you can't just deregulate randomly and hope for a good outcome.

I mean...there already are private shuttles and buses throughout LA. Tour buses are a tourist staple and I can't imagine there's much regulation there. I can only assume the particular bus you're talking about broke some law that I most likely don't mind is in place.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by JaRail on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @02:56PM (#20813236)

Google's employee shuttles/buses are a decent example too.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by achenatx on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @12:19PM (#20811350)

yes. Imagine public shuttles using uber based technology. So the shuttles come pick you up and drop you off at your destination.

They can do transfers to other shuttles or other public transit on fixed routes to optimize the routes.

The govt would never come up with rideshare type algorithms.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by cannonedhamster on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @04:32PM (#20814139)

Yeah because the single largest logistics system in the world knows nothing about transportation. You free market only people really are blind to reality. The US government is the single best move of people and goods on the planet. We literally run our military on logistics. Show me any real private industry that runs their transportation as efficiently as a government one with the limited resources and requirements for service that public does. You know how the private market makes money? They cut out the poor people and inefficient routes which public industry can't do because their mission is to actual serve the community instead of shareholders.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by isbjorn16 on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @12:24PM (#20811422)

https://crosscut.com/2019/08/seattles-microtransit-experimen...

Maybe just an exception to the rule, but still worth pointing out.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by AstralStorm on Thursday August 29, 2019 @07:41AM (#20828574)

Who needs ride sharing if you have good public transport?

You go the far distance to a hub which has lots of parking space and switch to subway, tram, bus or foot traffic, or bikes, or the hip electric scooter. And disadvantaged or disabled people get better accessibility. Pity it is hard to retrofit into misdesigned cities.

See EU and how Uber is not making millions here. And taxis are relatively expensive.

Also check South Korea and how relatively cheap normal unsubsidized taxis essentially prevented Uber from getting a foothold...

It does not compete with owned cars at all.

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Re:Let's build houses for people, not cars by jayd16 on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @01:09PM (#20812049)

And none of that needs a change in regulations. That could all happen now save for those exact market forces. Haven't you just described Uber pool which already exists? Assuming our prayers will be answered by just deregulating things is silly.

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